DALLAS, GA, USA U.S. Army SPC, COMPANY B, SPECIAL TROOPS BATTALION, 3RD BRIGADE, 1ST ID, FORT HOOD, TX BAF MACP, AFGHANISTAN 05/01/2009
A 22-year-old Georgia soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. Ryan C. King of Paulding County, an Army specialist and a member of the Special Troops Battalion, died May 1 in a fire fight with insurgents in Konar Province.
The Pentagon said a fellow soldier, Sergeant James D. Pirtle of Colorado Springs, Colo., also was killed in the attack.
To Brittney Peters, it seems just like yesterday she and Ryan and their friends were all hanging out and goofing off in the neighborhood.
“I bring myself to tears when I think of all the fun memories we had. I wish there could have been one last goodbye; there are so many things I would have said. Thank you for the memories that will make all of us remember you,” she wrote on an online bulletin board. “I never got the chance to tell you, I am so proud of you and what you have done.”
King, 22, of Dallas, Ga. was a 2005 high school graduate and was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas.
A few months after graduation, he enlisted in the Army, something he had wanted to do since he was a child. He went to basic training at Fort Sill, Okla. After he completed his training, he was stationed in Korea for a year, where he met his wife, Sergeant Rachel King.
At a memorial, Specialist Gregory Landgraf read stories of King publishing a newspaper lampooning the soldiers in his unit and a time when King tied his arm behind his back and took on a sergeant during a combative match.